NIEM’s History

NIEM has come a long way since it was formally launched in April 2005 by the Chief Information Officers of U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice. Learn how it all began.

It began as a grassroots effort

NIEM’s origins lie in the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative. This grassroots effort by a handful of organizations supporting state and local government set in motion the creation of a seamless, interoperable model for data exchange across government agencies. The pre-release of the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) was announced in April 2003.

Parallel to the GJXDM effort was the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the mention of metadata in the President’s strategy for the homeland security community to begin working towards standardization.

These efforts by the justice and homeland security communities to produce a set of common, well-defined data elements for data exchange development and harmonization led to the standup of NIEM.

NIEM is born

Built on GJXDM's success and lessons learned from its user base, NIEM was formally launched in April 2005 by the Chief Information Officers of DHS and the U.S. Department of Justice. NIEM united key stakeholders from federal, state, local, and tribal governments as well as the private sector to develop and deploy a national model for information sharing and the organizational structure to govern it.

In October 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services joined as the third steward of NIEM. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Defense mandated enterprise-wide use of NIEM. Since then, departments including the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have adopted NIEM as well. Since 2005, NIEM has issued seven releases, including the most recent release, NIEM 4.0.

NIEM now

The NIEM Program is maturing and our user community continues to grow. Today all 50 states and many federal agencies are using (at varying levels of maturity) or considering using NIEM. The benefits of NIEM have also extended to Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia.

NIEM Timeline

The program's success–and the value of standardized information exchange itself–relies on your active participation and collaboration. It's because of our community that we've accomplished so much. This is an active timeline, so if you have a milestone to add, let us know.

NIEM celebrates its success with the first-ever Best of NIEM awards to recognize NIEM implementation projects that demonstrate how intergovernmental collaboration and innovative technology deliver results that improve performance, increase efficiency, and support transparency.

At North America Day, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada Sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to pilot the exchange of public health and safety information using NIEM—a significant first step in the development of a borderless network of information exchange between the three countries.

What's next for NIEM? As the program continues to evolve, we will continue to look for ways to simplify use, embrace emerging technologies, and welcome new communities. With your continued involvement, we look forward to seeing NIEM's impact in helping organizations exchange information to improve decision making, increase efficiency, and advance their missions.